OakData vs Microsoft Clarity
Clarity watches sessions. OakData understands people.
Microsoft Clarity is genuinely free replay and heatmaps, with real limits: 30-day replay retention, thin analytics, and Microsoft's advertising cookies on your site. OakData is the whole picture, first party.
Microsoft Clarity's pitch is hard to argue with: free session recordings and heatmaps, forever, with no traffic limits, plus smart events, frustration signals, Web Vitals, a Copilot, and an MCP server. Over two million sites run it, and for a quick look at how people use your pages at a price of zero, it delivers.
The costs are structural rather than monetary. Replays are kept 30 days. Analytics depth is thin by design: Microsoft's own answer for goals and campaigns is the Google Analytics integration. Revenue tracking exists only for Shopify. And the data side deserves a clear-eyed read: Clarity sets Microsoft advertising cookies like MUID, Microsoft acts as an independent controller of the data, and its recommended privacy wording for your site includes improving Microsoft's advertising. OakData's model is the opposite: your data, first party, cookie-free, with analytics, identity, and Stripe revenue in the same product as the replays.
Side by side
 OakData | Microsoft Clarity | |
|---|---|---|
| Session replay | Included, tied to person profiles | Free, 30-day retention |
| Heatmaps | Yes | Yes |
| Traffic & acquisition analytics | Yes | Thin; leans on GA integration |
| Funnels | Multi-step, drill to person | Basic (consent required in EU) |
| Person-level profiles | Identity stitching + durable fingerprint | Cookie-based, per device |
| Error monitoring | Yes | Error filters, no script details |
| Core Web Vitals | Yes | Yes |
| Stripe revenue & MRR | Yes | Shopify only |
| Bot filtering | Layered: UA, IP ranges, ASN, headless | Toggle; known leakage |
| Cookie-free | Yes | Sets Microsoft advertising cookies (MUID) |
| Your data stays yours | Yes | Microsoft is an independent data controller |
| AI agent access (MCP) | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing | 14-day free trial, then usage-based | Free |
Based on publicly available information as of July 2026. Features and pricing change, so verify anything decision-critical against Microsoft Clarity's current site.
Choose OakData if…
- You want analytics, funnels, identity, and revenue in the same product as replay, not a recorder bolted onto Google Analytics.
- 30-day replay retention is too short for how you investigate: OakData keeps sessions alongside the person's full history.
- Your privacy posture can't include third-party advertising cookies or a vendor acting as independent controller of your visitor data.
- You serve EU traffic: since late 2025 Clarity needs a consent signal there, which breaks its no-banner appeal.
Choose Microsoft Clarity if…
- The budget is zero, full stop. Nothing else free comes close on replay and heatmaps.
- You're a Shopify store: Clarity's purchase and checkout tracking is built for it.
- You already live in the Microsoft advertising stack, where the data relationship is a feature rather than a concern.
Questions
Yes, genuinely: no traffic caps, no paid tiers. The trade is structural: replays are retained 30 days, analytics depth leans on the GA integration, revenue tracking is Shopify-only, and Microsoft, acting as an independent data controller, can use collected data per its privacy statement, including for advertising. That's the price tag; whether it's acceptable depends on your site.
Microsoft doesn't position it that way: Clarity is behavior analytics (recordings, heatmaps, frustration signals), and its own docs point you to the Google Analytics integration for goals and campaign depth. OakData covers both layers in one product, so there's no second tool to reconcile numbers with.
It's the other way around in Europe. OakData is cookie-free by design. Clarity sets first-party and Microsoft third-party cookies, and since October 2025 it requires a consent signal for EEA, UK, and Swiss traffic, without which replays and funnels degrade.
Both are DOM-based recordings. The difference is context and retention: Clarity keeps replays 30 days and profiles are per-device cookies, while OakData attaches every replay to a durable person profile with their full journey, events, errors, and revenue, so a recording is one click from everything else you know about that visitor.
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